TERRAFORMING TERRA
We discuss and comment on the role agriculture will play in the containment of the CO2 problem and address protocols for terraforming the planet Earth.
A model farm template is imagined as the central methodology. A broad range of timely science news and other topics of interest are commented on.

Friday, August 17, 2018

Explaining the High Cost of US Health Care: No Skin in the Game

I completely disagree with the idea that universal medicare cannot work. It has actually worked well enough everywhere else. The insurance companies are not involved at all. as it should be for a universal need. Do you pay an insurance company to provide your food?

My key point though is 'well enough' That amazingly in Canada provides a plane trip for a rare brain operation handled in one key place. You simply do not need two places and you have only a handful.

What is not provided is best service for discretionary aspects, but so what. The easy fix to all that is allowing queue jumping for cash because there is actually slack enough. Waiting a year for a knee operation is no fun but most are already retired. Paying to have it now is an option.

We are now trending toward a massive improvement in human health and in outcomes as well. This will actually drop the general cost profile.

A free market is only possible in the USA if the insurance gaming is excluded. Fifteen percent of that twenty percent is drained by unnecessary admin and insurance profiteering with markups stacked on markups.

The U.S. spends more per capita on health care than any other
developed nation. It will soon spend close to 20% of its GDP on
health—significantly more than the percentage spent by major
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations.

What is driving costs so high? As this series of charts shows,
Americans aren’t buying more health care overall than other countries.
But what they are buying is increasingly expensive. Among the reasons is
the troubling fact that few people in health care, from consumers to
doctors to hospitals to insurers, know the true cost of what they are
buying and selling.

Contributions to employer-sponsored health coverage aren’t taxed,
which makes it less expensive for companies to pay workers with health
benefits than wages.

Generous benefits lead to higher spending,
according to many economists, because employees can consume as much
health care as they want without having to pay significantly more out of
their own pockets.

The prices of many medicines are hidden because pharmacy-benefit
managers—the companies that administer drug benefits for employers and
health insurers—negotiate confidential discounts and rebates with
drugmakers.

Price Growth Since 2000

Hospitals are becoming more consolidated and are using their market clout to negotiate higher prices from insurers.

Tax Benefits

Contributions to employer-sponsored health coverage aren’t taxed,
which makes it less expensive for companies to pay workers with health
benefits than wages.

Generous benefits lead to higher spending,
according to many economists, because employees can consume as much
health care as they want without having to pay significantly more out of
their own pockets.

The tax benefit is the country’s biggest single income-tax break, costing billions to government revenue.

WSJ Misses the Big Picture

The charts are interesting but the WSJ misses the big picture: There is no incentive anywhere to reduce costs.

No Skin in the Game

Where the hell is "skin in the game"?

Those covered by Medicare have no skin in the game. And that is precisely why Medicare for All would be an abomination.

Those covered under company plans have little incentive to reduce
costs. Once deductibles are met, there is "no skin in the game".

Lobbyists wrote Obamacare. The results speak for themselves.

Congress had a golden opportunity to allow drug imports but failed
to act. Drug companies can charge what they want and insurers will pony
up.

There is no right to refuse service. Hospitals take anyone and
everyone whether or not they have insurance. As such, many don't have
insurance. They have no skin in they game. Bankruptcy is a way out.

Massive amounts of money are wasted to keep terminal patients alive.
Why? Because hospitals get paid by insurers. If hospitals didn't get
paid, and had they had right of refusal, such nonsense would stop.

Obama himself: Obama dictated what had to be be in healthcare plans.
They labeled them Gold, Silver, and Bronze. Lovely. Arguably they
should have been called dumb, dumber, and dumbest. Why? Millennials and
healthy people had to overpay to support everyone else. The millennials
dropped out, just as free market principles would have dictated.

Let the Free Market Work

Please, let the
free market work. Let insurers offer whatever plans they want. Let
people buy whatever they want. And let those without insurance pay the
price. I assure you, prices will plummet.

If you need a liver transplant and your insurance doesn't cover it. Sorry, you lose.

Costs for routine
services will plunge because hospitals will not have to pay $200 for one
aspirin to make up for the cost of an unpaid liver transplant.

Insurance plans
ought to be able to force treatment overseas if someone is healthy
enough to travel. A heart bypass operation in India is 10% of the cost
here.

At a bare minimum, insurance companies ought to be able to offer such plans.

Personal Experiences - Stop and Smell the Lilacs

I seriously wonder
if chemotherapy is more of a torture than a blessing. I watched my mom
die in misery. The cost today is surely thousands of times higher. For
what? To prolong someone's life for six months? At what cost? And who
should pay?

When my mom stopped
breathing, they asked my dad if he wanted them to try and revive her.
He said no. Had he not been there, what would they have done? Why?

My wife, Joanne,
died from ALS (Lou Gerhig's Disease). She was on extremely expensive
drugs paid for under Medicare. Note that one does not have to be 65 to
be under Medicare. Rather, Medicare picks up all costs on some terminal
diseases.

Did those drugs do
her any good? I doubt it. We also need to define "good". If they kept
her alive for another three months (which I highly doubt), it was
another three months of pain and suffering.

I sponsored a
raffle for the benefit of the Les Turner ALS Foundation. And we put on a
economic conference. John Hussman did a generous match of non-raffle
proceeds. All told, we raised $500,000 for the Les Turner foundation.

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About Me

18 years old, having cleaned out my HS library, I concluded the only ambition worth having was becoming a great genius. An inner voice cheered. Yet it is my path I have shared much to the Human Gesalt. Mar 2017 - 4.56 Mil Pg Views, March 2013 - Posted my paper introducing CLOUD COSMOLOGY & NEUTRAL NEUTRINO described as the SPACE TIME PENDULUM. Sep 2010 -My essay titled A NEW METRIC WITH APPLICATIONS TO PHYSICS AND SOLVING CERTAIN HIGHER ORDERED DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS has been published in Physics Essays(AIP) June 2010 quarterly. 40 years ago I took an honors degree in applied mathematics from the University of Waterloo. My interest was Relativity and my last year there saw me complete a 900 level course under Hanno Rund on his work in Relativity. I continued researching new ideas and knowledge since that time and I have prepared a book for publication titled Paradigms Shift. I maintain my blog as a day book and research tool to retain data, record impressions, interpretations and to introduce new insights to readers.